What do you say? After all the special prayers, after all the pastoral care,
your church looks to you to speak a word from the Lord on behalf of God. What
will you preach on Sunday? No one at any website can, nor should, tell you what
to preach. What I offer here instead is a reminder of how to think through the
homiletic process theologically in order to speak a word from the Lord into
your particular situation.
First of all, as is sometimes the response of clergy to socio-political issues,
we dare not bury our heads in the sand, preach the lectionary's lost sheep/lost
coin passage as though nothing has happened, and say nothing. The people in
the pews before us are expecting us to say something of God which is what they
sense is holding all of life together. No one really wants us to proffer yet
another opinion such as those heard on the plethora of newscasts. We're the
ones called to speak God's news in all of this tragedy.
Though the lectionary is valuable, this may be one of the Sundays when you decide
to set it aside, although the Jeremiah passage and the Exodus passage certainly
offer divine comment on our idolatries that have contributed to making us a
terrorist target. On first glance, Psalm 51's cry for mercy may seem appropriate,
but it confesses an individual sin of commission. A cry for corporate mercy
from the psalms would be more appropriate. This is probably not the day to descry
sin. At this point, we may be feeling a little too little and vulnerable and
exhausted, all too aware that our own strength cannot save, for it has given
out. So the lectionary passages are probably not appropriate at this time. You
need to think and pray and discern before you go spouting off judgment from
God. Though we need to point out policies we're complicit in that are oppressing
people to the point where they dance in the streets over this heinous act, we
need to discern the appropriate time for prophetic denunciations--maybe next
week or months later, and certainly all along from time to time. But in times
of crisis we need to know the power of God is something we can trust, not just
revere and hope to steer clear of, but trust our lives with, provided we are
willing to live humbly before the Lord.
So sift through the aftermath, assessing what you need to say in your particular
place, depending upon where your people are. A pastor in New York City is confronted
by more intense loss than a pastor in Wyoming, and she will need to preach comfort,
the ability to trust God when all the earth is shaking. (Psalm 46 may be a good
text.) Yet the pastor in Wyoming should not be fooled into thinking no one in
his congregation was affected by this tragedy. At our regular chapel service
at 11:30 on Tuesday morning, our seminary community gathered. We asked for prayer
requests, and most of us expected about 6-10 pleas. Countless requests for loved
ones poured forth like a flood that threatened to overwhelm us all. Normally
stoic Presbyterians choked on tears as they held their loved ones up in prayer.
We saw how interconnected we truly are, how precious and how fragile life is,
and how all of life is bound together in a common plea to the Almighty: Lord,
have mercy. Maybe this is what we preach, with the assurance that God gives
consolation to help us through the terror with the divine mercy we've seen at
work in the situation.
Once you've carefully assessed the rhetorical situation before you, comb scripture
and tradition for what you are called to say. Though you will want to keep abreast
of the news as it unfolds, careful not to spread any more misinformation, ultimately
you are called to speak to the situation theologically--i.e. "God-word-ly."
I am writing this on Wednesday morning. Who knows what the world will look like
come Sunday. We may not know what tomorrow brings, as an old hymn sings, but
we know who holds tomorrow, and the people in the pews are there because they
want to know something of this God we know. That's where you come in.
Your liturgy is extremely important at this time. Ritual is comforting. The
ancient cries, "Lord, have mercy," need to be prominent, and the prayers
of intercession strong. Search prayer and worship books for more time-tested
prayers and litanies. Funeral services' scripture passages need to be in abundance.
Familiar hymns of assurance, such as "Be Still, My Soul," "O
God, our Help in Ages Past," "A Mighty Fortress is our God,"
are important. Be aware of the movement of the service, careful to pull back
at times from our grief to give us the ability to hear and reflect. Build more
silence into the service and slow your speech down. People in shock cannot process
information as quickly, and by Sunday we may still be in shock. We are held
together at times like these in prayer, and people are in dire need of our vigilant
prayers as well as the embodiment of our intercessions on their behalf. Think
about and find out how your church can help, and organize something for people
to do as an extension of worship--give blood, offer shelter, give money, volunteer.
Terror is nothing new to the Christian tradition. Search the prophetic texts
for how Israel dealt with the terror of the Babylonian exile and wars in the
past. Search the New Testament and church history for how terrorized Christians
withstood torture, and draw strength from the blood of the martyrs. Be careful
about naming evil in clear-cut terms. We are facing evil, but evil is tricky,
hiding in shadows, often in disguise. The first part of any exorcism of evil
is naming the demon, and we need to exercise caution not to demonize when we
are all complicit Tuesday's evil. Surely now is the time to help us remember
that we are a people who resist evil with the courage of love.
There's old homiletic wisdom proffered in African-American preaching circles:
when you don't know what else to do, go to the cross. Not bad advice. One could
preach a sermon describing the event of the cross in such a way that it sounds
like Tuesday only to pull back to reveal the terror of the cross. Crucifixion
is what the glorious Roman empire we grew to love in civics classes used to
rule by fear. Then remind people that out of that symbol of terror that tortured
and shattered the beautiful vision of God's shalom that Jesus embodied emerged
the eternality of the Word of the Lord that remains forever--a word of hope
and trust in the good that will ultimately prevail despite what evil may threaten
to do to us. Mayor Rudolph Guiliani said it well on the Today show Wednesday
when he said something like: "The most visible symbol of New York is not
the World Trade Center, but the spirit of a free people." And the spirit
of a free people bound only by the love of Christ-- not commerce nor military
might--is what no terror can ever take from us, even though we be destroyed.
For by the eternal love of God's power for shalom, holy spirit soars up from
the jaws of death.
Dr. Teresa Lockhart Stricklen
Assistant Professor of Homiletics
Pittsburgh Theological Seminary